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So we went on our first trip this weekend to Interlaken, Switzerland! It was absolutely incredible.
We had dinner at I’Grullo with Nico and Livio(the chef who had never spoken to us before, but when we walked in immediately knew our order) on Thursday Night to have dinner before taking the bus to Interlaken. The bus ride was 8 hours long, and pretty uneventful. I sat next to Steph and we watch hands down the WORST bus movies known to mankind. American Beauty and Boys from the Hood (which we never even got to finish). I thought that it was an established rule that only comedies are to be played on buses. The bathroom was pretty gross. We had to walk down steps to get to it, and the water level was uncomfortably high. We stopped at a rest stop on the way, which was equally gross, and I got crispy m&ms (I miss you and your delicious crisped rice center).
We got to the hostel at around 3am, and I was very pleasantly surprised with it. Steph, Amy, and I shared a room with 4 other girls from Florence who were great, and I had my silk sleep sack (thanks Tobey and Amanda McBroom!) and the pillows were ridiculously comfy so things were good. My silk sleep sack looks exactly like what Mr. G wears in his classroom when he performs for his students and goes in that pink sack thing.
hey whatsup! i'm naturally this gorgeous.
We woke up at around 8 the next day and walked around town and to the lake. It was freezing, but Interlaken is gorgeous. Drop dead gorgeous. The water is crystalline and the prettiest shade of aquamarine, and the houses and trees and mountains are just unreal. I felt like I was on a postcard. We took in the sights, and had lunch at the local Hooters because we were craving normal, American food and were starving. It was my first Hooters experience, and pretty uneventful; but if Michael Scott likes it then I guess I do, too. We then went to the rental shop to get our gear for skiing and NIGHT SLEDDING. The first ski pants I tried on fit, but were ridiculously short and I was essentially wearing coolats (sp?). It was awkward. The jacket I got was a berry beaut, and looked like what a 10 year old boy would wear in 1989. Perfect.
Night sledding was so much fun! We took a bus ride to the mountains where we got our plastic sleds and took an 8 person gondola ride to the top of a mountain. We had lights to put on our backs so the people behind us could see us, and it was FREEZING. Absolutely freezing. We were pretty much on our own- had to use our feet to steer, stop, and prevent yourself from falling off of a cliff in the pitch black dark. I made it! I had one injury, when I saw people getting up to walk their sleds (you had to do this in areas where the terrain was too flat), I went to get up too, but my momentum made me get up and crash into my sled. I have bruises on the inside of both of my knees/thighs from that fall and from the entire sledding experience. It was great though, you went pretty fast down on what can be best described as a narrow, winding ski slope. At the bottom we had a fondue dinner. By the time we ate, it was 9:30 and I wolfed down the meal without even paying attention. We had a salad, then some ambiguous chicken/beef/mushroom and potato mix, and then cheese fondue with bread. I was a starving child. By the time we got home it was 12ish and we were exhausted so we went straight to bed.
Amy and Lyssie do the Alps
The next day we woke up at 7:30 for SKIING. It was such a shlep. We walked 5 minutes to the rental place, then to the bus stop, then took a train (with a transfer!), then arrived in Wengen (for all intents and purposes I am going to refer to this town from now on as Whoville) where we had to take another gondala ride up to the top of the mountain. IT WAS GORGEOUS AND UNREAL. I have been skiing since I was very little, but the last time I went was New Years Eve, Freshman year of high school at the Soll’s country house with the Zaretskys. That’s a long time ago, but I was surprisingly able to pick it up very quickly and was parallel skiing on my first run down. The system here is different, and we did all blues with 1 red part. I apologize to Uncle Cliff, my dad, and my mom for being such a pain all those years of skiing and being a brat and crying over getting private instructors as opposed to ski school. I realized that I really miss skiing and want to start going again. It felt like I never stopped. AND I SKIIED THE ALPS. We started above the clouds, and when we skiied into the cloud because it was so sunny, it looked like someone was dropping glitter from the sky and we were in a snowglobe. Un. Real. I’m convinced this is what heaven looks like. Amy had a bit of a hard time at first because her boots weren’t closed and so it was hard for her to get her bearings when we were all readjusting and so I guess we could describe this experience as Amy tumbling down the Alps.
Amy walking her skis down the slope after a particularly brutal tumble
meanwhile, back in the "Relaxation Room"...
Yes, Dayna and Steph stayed back and went to the spa. We had a really good skiing group. It was me, Amay, Marissa, Kerri, and Rachel and Allie who I met there. We had SO MUCH FUN. All of us had skiied when we were younger but had taken a break, so were basically on the same page ability wise and it was just the most amazing experience I’ve had and I couldn’t believe I was there. I didn’t fall once. Lies. I fell once. When we were done for the day and walking with our skis off to get onto the gondola, I slipped on the ice and fell on the concrete. It was the type of fall in which my feet flew in the air and I wiped out. I would be the person to ski the Alps without falling, and just wipe out on my own accord.
That night we went to an Irish pub next to Balmer’s (the other hostel) for dinner and then went to Metro, the club in the hostel. It was really a lot of fun, even though we were all dead from the day.
The last day we woke up, and switched our pillows with the hostel ones since they were better, then checked out. We got into trouble for switching the pillows and were accosted at breakfast by the reception man who screamed at us. It was rull awkward. We then went to get chocolate at Schuh, take in the views from the terrace of the highest restaurant in Interlaken, and then went ice skating. The ice skating was fantastic, I was really whipping out the moves I learned from Saturdays at Long Beach Ice Arena. Thank you, Karen.
All in all: I know this was the first weekend we travelled, but it definitely set the bar extremely high and I want to go back so badly. I was just in complete awe of the natural beauty of the area, and we definitely did more activities than we will on any other trip, but they were each so much fun. And it was also a really great group of people. I miss it already. Here’s some pics:
look at the cloud line!!!!
whatisshedoing 